


Grace

by Ghost_in_the_Hella



Series: Holidays are Strange [8]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, F/F, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sex Jokes, Thanksgiving, Underage Drinking, amberprice, flirting but make it sad, hella sweary, holiday fic, implied domestic abuse, mild drug use, pissing off your parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27726980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_in_the_Hella/pseuds/Ghost_in_the_Hella
Summary: “This year, I’m thankful for dat ass,” Chloe leers, emphasizing her words with a firm but playful squeeze. She spins around once, Rachel laughing and squealing against her shoulder, before setting Rachel’s feet back on the ground. “Whaddya think? Good answer?”“Not bad,” Rachel replies, pushing herself gently out of Chloe’s arms with a smirk. “But I think we can do better.”---Rachel's been invited home for a normal, perfect Thanksgiving dinner by her normal, perfect parents so she can be their normal, perfect daughter. She's determined to make things uncomfortable for everyone involved.Amberprice Thanksgiving circa 2012.
Relationships: Rachel Amber & Chloe Price, Rachel Amber/Chloe Price
Series: Holidays are Strange [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1244693
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	Grace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Velmax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velmax/gifts).



> Thank you to my partner Velmax for giving me basically all the best jokes in this story. 
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving to anyone who celebrates, and I hope you're celebrating safely from home with your bubble.

About a third of the way along the walk to her parents’ house, Rachel is confident that Chloe is the optimal shade of drunk for Thanksgiving dinner with the Ambers. She passed “charming” two beers ago and is now teetering on the verge of “sloppy,” with “crushing despair” still a few good drinks out of reach. She’s loud and careless and increasingly affectionate, eyes shining bright under the streetlights, her smiles untouched by bitterness or uncertainty for what feels like the first time in months. And maybe it is the first time in months. The last few have been pretty strained between them, after all. Looking at her now under the soft, golden glow of streetlights and beer goggles, it’s getting harder for Rachel to remember why. 

She _loves_ her like this. Relaxed and pliant, warm and close, her rough edges not softened by the booze but sharpened to a finer point, laughing and joking and _touching_ like nothing’s changed between them… Loving her would be easy if it were always like this. 

Rachel’s either had too much or not enough to drink if she’s thinking like this; she’s not sure which. She’s abruptly shaken out of her thoughts by a slightly over-enthused shoulder-bump. “Rach. Think they’re gonna do that thing where they ask what you’re thankful for?”

Rachel groans and rolls her eyes. “They do it every fucking year, so, yeah.” She knows it’s her fault they’re on their way to her parents’ house, but does Chloe really have to remind her? She takes another swig from the bottle in her hand, deciding the answer is “not enough to drink.” She’s not sure there’s enough alcohol in the world to make her drunk enough for this dinner.

Chloe grins, mischief playing in her eyes. “Sweet. I got the perfect answer.”

Rachel cocks an eyebrow. “Oh?” She doesn’t trust the look on Chloe’s face, and she definitely doesn’t trust the way her heart rate picks up seeing it. She lets out a squeal of surprise when Chloe surges forward and sweeps her up off her feet.

“This year, I’m thankful for _dat ass_ ,” Chloe leers, emphasizing her words with a firm but playful squeeze. She spins around once, Rachel laughing and squealing against her shoulder, before setting Rachel’s feet back on the ground. “Whaddya think? Good answer?”

“Not bad,” Rachel replies, pushing herself gently out of Chloe’s arms with a smirk. “But I think we can do better.” She hooks a finger in Chloe’s belt loop and pulls her close again until she clumsily bumps into her. She twirls a lock of blue hair around one finger and gives a soft tug. “This year, _I’m_ thankful the carpet matches the drapes.”

The way Chloe’s eyes go wide makes Rachel feel a swell of predatory pride. Chloe’s face reddens and she starts spluttering. “I-buh-whu… It _doesn’t_ , though!”

“Yeah, but _they_ don’t know that. And can you imagine the looks on their faces?? They’ll be _shitting_ themselves.” She cackles and takes another pull on her beer, keeping her finger latched onto Chloe’s belt loop. Her breath is white in the air. She thinks she should probably feel colder than she does, but between Chloe and the beer she’s feeling almost uncomfortably warm. She shivers anyway. “Hey, c’mere,” she says on an impulse she suspects she should resist, tugging on Chloe’s jeans and tilting her head up for a kiss.

Chloe hesitates only for a fraction of a second, just long enough to sink an ice cube into the pit of Rachel’s stomach. The tender brush of Chloe’s lips against hers, the taste of warm beer and second-hand smoke, has it melting. It’s too gentle, though; Rachel doesn’t want Gentle Chloe right now. She lets the nearly empty bottle drop with a clink and a small splash, reaching up to clench her fingers in Chloe’s hair, sucking hard on Chloe’s bottom lip until she hears her gasp, then dragging her teeth over the sensitive flesh. 

“ _Fuck_ , Rach,” Chloe groans, sounding surprised. Rachel pulls her back in for another kiss before she can say anything else. Talking means thinking, and if either of them is capable of coherent thought then she’s doing something wrong. Chloe’s fingers are gripping her hips almost hard enough to bruise. Rachel should’ve worn a shorter shirt. She breaks off the kiss abruptly and dives straight into Chloe’s neck, determined to leave her mark. 

They should’ve fucked back when they were pre-gaming in Chloe’s room. She wants to smell like her. She wants to wear the scent of her like perfume. She wants to stagger into that goddamned pretentious-ass McMansion stinking of Chloe’s sweat, her sex, her dollar-store cologne, her cheap cigarettes and cheaper beer, her skunk weed, and see how her parents react to _that_. 

They know Chloe, is the trouble. They’ve known her for years already. They’ve had time to inure themselves, to adjust their friendly, pseudo-liberal facades to accommodate her existence in their lives. She’s already eaten at their table, put her muddy boots up on the furniture, slept in their daughter’s bed.

Frank would’ve probably shook them up more, honestly. Bringing home the local drug dealer to Thanksgiving dinner; now _that_ would’ve been a coup. Even on his best behavior, he’d’ve scared them shitless. But when she’d asked him he’d refused to even consider it. Chickenshit. Like a disgraced DA fresh out of prison has enough clout left to do anything to him. 

Whatever. His fucking loss. And honestly if she’d left Chloe to have Thanksgiving dinner alone with her mom and Sergeant Dickface she’d’ve been a total kicked puppy about it, anyway. She can’t stomach that hurt look Chloe gets when she feels like she’s been abandoned. Not to mention the grilling she would’ve had to endure afterward. It’s probably better all around this way.

She pulls back to admire her handiwork. Chloe’s a mess: breathless and shaking, deep red and purple marks livid against the pale skin of her neck. When she opens her eyes to look at Rachel, they’re full of questions Rachel really doesn’t want to try to answer. She steps in to kiss her again before any of them can escape. She bites at Chloe’s lips almost hard enough to break skin, working them over with her teeth until they’re red and swollen and _obvious_. Chloe takes it in stride, responding in kind and reaching her hands up under the back of Rachel’s shirt to drag freshly trimmed nails along her skin and, god, they _really_ should’ve fucked back at Chloe’s place.

Rachel finally pushes herself away, lips throbbing and head swimming. “We should’ve offered to bring the centerpiece,” she mumbles, bending to pick up her bottle. There’s only a small sip of it left; the rest of it spilled onto Chloe’s pants when she dropped it. She wipes some stray grains of dirt from the wet lip of the bottle and swallows the last few drops. 

“Yeah?” Chloe answers, still panting slightly, her eyes still fixed on Rachel with a kind of hunger that goes straight to the marrow of her bones. 

Rachel can’t look at her. Her eyes ask too much. Her bitten lips beckon too much. Rachel focuses on hurling the empty bottle as far as she can, listening as it whistles through the air and lands with a satisfying shatter somewhere in the dark beyond the streetlights. “Yeah,” she replies at last, beginning to walk ahead. “You’d make a great centerpiece, sprawled out over the dining room table.”

There’s a moment of startled silence behind her, then the hurried shuffle of Chloe’s boots as she moves to catch up with her. If she was caught off-guard by Rachel’s words, she’s recovered by the time she reaches her side. “So in this dining room table fantasy of yours,” she smirks, “how naked am I?”

“ _Hella_ naked. And trussed up like a turkey.”

Chloe gives her a playful hip-check that almost sends her stumbling. Her face is flaming red even in the scant light, but she’s grinning. “I can work with that.”

“I bet you can.” Rachel checks her back. It’s a little dangerous, jostling each other back and forth when they’re both drunk enough to make walking a challenge, but it feels less dangerous than any other kind of physical contact between them, so they keep it up. The closer they get to her parents’ house, the more Rachel wants to turn around and start walking in the opposite direction. “God,” she hisses through her teeth, “Which one of us d’you think they’ll make say grace this year?”

Chloe makes a vaguely distressed sound in the back of her throat, probably having flashbacks of her first Thanksgiving dinner with the Ambers. “Fuck, probably me,” she mutters. That’s enough to have her pulling her emergency flask out of her waistband and taking a deep swig, and Chloe is Rachel’s new goddamn hero when she hands it over to her afterward. The liquor is warm from Chloe’s body and strong enough to burn on the way down, making Rachel’s eyes water. “I’ve got it,” Chloe announces, coming to a sudden halt. She throws her arms out and her head back, and her voice booms out into the night at a volume utterly unreasonable for the neighborhood they’re currently in: “Roses are red, my pubes are blue, I’m screwing your daughter, so _sucks to be you_!”

Rachel almost loses her mouthful of liquor over that one. She claps a hand over her mouth to keep it in - it burns her throat, her nose, her sinuses, her eyes - until she can swallow enough of it to laugh without choking. 

Chloe beams at her brightly and waggles her eyebrows. “Now, let’s _eat_!”

“Don’t eat too much, though,” Rachel chides her teasingly, and in her mind’s eye she can just see the angry flaring of her father’s nostrils, the nervous twitching of Rose’s eyelid. “Don’t want to spoil your appetite for later.” Still snickering, she falls heavily against Chloe’s side, making her stagger sideways a step or two. Chloe’s arm wraps around her automatically. 

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to overdo it on the turkey and pass out in flagrante delicto,” Chloe plays along with a chuckle and a conspiratorial leer toward their imaginary audience. “That’s fancy talk for nailing your daughter.”

Rachel’s laughing too hard to walk. She’d be dropping to her knees if it weren’t for Chloe holding her up. “Oh, fuck, please say that to them,” she gasps when she can speak. “ _Please_. Oh my god, he’ll burst a blood vessel trying to hold in the rage.”

“You sure about that? He just got out of prison; maybe he’ll just straight up shiv me.”

The urge to laugh drains out of Rachel all at once. “No way. James Amber doesn’t get his own hands dirty, remember? He’ll hire someone else to do it for him.” She takes another swallow, then caps the nearly empty flask and presses it back into Chloe’s hands. “Fuck, you holding?” she asks. “Our eyes aren’t nearly bloodshot enough.”

Chloe raises an eyebrow as she empties the flask and tucks it back into her waistband. “Uh, yeah. ‘Course I am.” She fishes a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of her shredded skinny jeans and taps out a tightly rolled joint. 

“That’s my girl,” Rachel purrs, snatching the joint from Chloe’s fingers. “I knew you wouldn’t let me suffer through this night sober.” She places the joint between her lips and waits patiently for Chloe to light her up. Chloe obliges her, as always, one hand cupping her chin softly to keep her steady as the other ignites the flame. Rachel keeps her eyes closed as she inhales. She can feel Chloe looking at her, fingers still lingering on her chin even after the joint is lit. 

She’s so good. She’s _so_ fucking good, and her weed is _so_ fucking god-awful, and it’s really such a crime.

“You deserve better,” Rachel sighs when her aching lungs force her to exhale. 

“What?” Chloe pulls back sharply, startled fingers vanishing from Rachel’s face and leaving her cold.

Rachel tips her head back and lets the last of the smoke trail upward from her lips into the night sky. She opens her eyes and watches it fade into the stars. Chloe’s still looking at her, she knows. Waiting. She’d wait forever, probably.

Rachel paints a smirk onto her lips before she lowers her head, holding up the joint for emphasis and cocking an eyebrow. “Your weed is _shit_.” She takes a deep hit and slips her arm around Chloe’s shoulders, pulling her close and angling her head. Chloe follows her lead unquestioningly, tilting her own head down and opening her mouth to receive Rachel’s smoke. Rachel seals it with a kiss, brief and light on Chloe’s bruised lips. “I’ll get you some of that fancy medicinal shit this weekend,” she promises. “As a thank you.”

If Chloe were a little more drunk or a little more sober, she might protest. She might say she doesn’t need Rachel’s handouts or her parents’ tainted money, and that if Rachel had any pride she wouldn’t take it either. If she were especially feeling like a fight, she might pry, demand who she was getting it from and what it cost, as if she didn’t already have her suspicions. But Chloe’s still on that perfect plateau of drunkenness, so she just smiles easy as anything and plucks the joint from Rachel’s fingers. “Thanks, babe. And here I thought I was just going along for the free meal.” 

Lousy as the weed is, Rachel chases the smoke as it flows from Chloe’s lips. Maybe it isn’t any good, maybe it’s bad for both of them, maybe they both deserve something better, but it’s familiar and it’s all too easy to enjoy. Rachel lingers once the smoke is gone, and this time when Chloe is gentle she accepts it. She leans up into her embrace and lets her touch be soft and sweet, lets herself melt into it. Lets herself kiss Chloe just to kiss her, not to make a statement. 

They don’t have to do this. Not really. They can turn around right now, sneak Chloe into Rachel’s dorm and stay up all night playing video games and gorging on junk food, ignoring their parents’ phone calls. She doesn’t owe her parents anything, and Chloe sure as fuck doesn’t. It’s not like she’ll be able to enjoy the meal anyway, not with James Amber sitting across the table from her for the first time in over a year when she’d rather he was still sitting in a prison cell. Not with Rose there, pretending that everything is okay the way she always does. Rachel won’t be able to stomach the food over the smell of all the bullshit.

It’s cruel of her to drag Chloe into this mess. It always was, right from the start. She just doesn’t know how to handle this alone. She’ll either explode, burning down every bridge and possibly the entire house, or she’ll just… _give in_ and let it be normal, which is worse. 

Chloe won’t let it be normal, and she won’t let Rachel explode. If there’s one thing in this world that Chloe is good at, it’s keeping Rachel together. There are, in fact, many, many things that Chloe is good at, but since taking a compliment is nowhere on that list she won’t admit to most of them. Keeping Rachel together is a full-time job these days, anyway, and since it’s one of those rare traits that Chloe takes actual pride in, Rachel tries not to resist it even when it makes her feel selfish and weak. 

And so she gives into it for a moment there under the streetlights. She lets Chloe hold her together with those hands that Chloe would swear can only break things apart. She wraps her arms around Chloe’s neck and lets the warmth of her skin ground her. For a moment Rachel feels like this could be all that reality is. Like maybe the only thing tethering her to the real world is the press of Chloe’s lips, the touch of her hands, the slope of her neck beneath Rachel’s arms. 

Even though it’s cold now and they are so much older in so many ways, for a moment it feels like the first time they kissed. Her heart is racing and the world stretches out without any limit and Chloe is beautiful and loyal and good and maybe Rachel can learn how to be the same way. Maybe, if she pays attention, if she tries, if she studies her, maybe… Maybe Rachel can learn.

Rachel pulls back with a sigh, and the moment is gone. She wants to rest her head against Chloe’s shoulder, but if she does that she’ll be pushing it. She can afford a moment of tenderness, but to extend it any further… She might start feeling safe. She might do anything Chloe asks of her. 

Even if Chloe asks her to stay.

She takes another quick hit off the joint burning slowly toward her fingers and strides ahead. A few seconds behind, Chloe’s boots scrape against gravel following on her heels. Chloe doesn’t try to catch up with her this time, keeping pace just a step or two behind. 

When the house comes into view, Rachel feels her shoulders tense. By the time they reach the door, the tension feels like it’s spread to her entire body. She takes a longer drag, willing the smoke to make her loose. It’s no different than going on stage, she reminds herself. It’s only a smaller audience. She turns and looks at Chloe for reassurance. Chloe looks a little nervous, but she was nearly throwing up the night of the Tempest, so a little nervous is nothing. They can do this. 

“Okay. We’re here. We’re…” She pauses to check her phone and smiles a little when she sees the excessively polite but increasingly pressing text messages lighting up her home screen. “Forty minutes late. We’re drunk as skunks--”

“Amen, sistah!”

“--and have a fresh coat of weed stink.” She waves the joint around like it’s incense. “Now. Let me have a good look at you.”

Chloe gives her that sheepish, lopsided grin that always makes Rachel’s heart do a stupid somersault like she’s in a fucking high school romcom (for fuck’s sake), and then she stands in the spotlight of the porch light and does a slow twirl, holding out her arms to receive Rachel’s appraisal. Rachel takes a slow, thoughtful drag and lets Chloe stew for a few seconds while she takes her in. “Well?” Chloe presses. “What’s the verdict? Do I look thrashed enough to be your dinner date tonight?”

She looks amazing, really. Her clothes are torn, stained, and sweaty. Her eyes are bright with booze and red with smoke. Her lips… her goddamn lips are still swollen and smeared with traces of Rachel’s lipstick. Rachel can still see the distinct impressions of her teeth here and there. The smudges of lipstick, far more dramatic than any color she would normally wear, stain her skin like blood. Chloe looks like she’s been mauled in the best possible way. She looks like a fucking rock star at the end of the night, exhausted from a two-hour set and a roomful of drugs and groupies but still keyed up and ready for the afterparty.

Rachel exhales her smoke in a controlled and steady breath, directing it over Chloe like she’s dousing her with perfume. “Almost.” She steps close again and hooks her fingers into one of the tears in Chloe’s shirt, meeting Chloe’s bright blue eyes and savoring the flash of uncertainty in them for just a second before she gives the fabric a firm yank. Chloe’s eyes widen as the hole in her shirt does the same. “You’re not showing enough skin,” Rachel informs her casually with a smile that dares her to do something about it. Rachel trails her fingers across Chloe’s shirt until she finds another hole. She waits for a second, curious if Chloe will do anything to stop her, then yanks again.

Chloe laughs then, startled and quick, like it took her that long to register what Rachel was doing. “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” She leans in and seizes the already slightly torn sleeve of Rachel’s flannel. “Two can play this game, Amber.” She acts on her words before Rachel can respond, a violent tug on Rachel’s sleeve that leaves it dangling.

Rachel can feel the searing heat of the joint nearing her fingers. The thought of burning a hole into Chloe’s shirt with it flickers briefly through her mind, but she’s not sure she wants to know what the consequence of that would be. She lets it drop to her feet, crushing it out without breaking eye contact, and hooks her fingers in another hole in Chloe’s shirt.

Chloe grins and hooks her own fingers into one of the rips in Rachel’s jeans. “Do it, Amber. I fuckin’ dare you.”

Rachel does.

So does Chloe. 

Either they’re laughing more loudly than they realize or else Rose has some sort of creepy sixth sense, because suddenly the door opens and all the laughter feels like it’s been sucked out of Rachel’s lungs. 

“I _thought_ I heard… you… two…” The plastic smile melts off of Rose’s lips for the barest fraction of a second before she remolds it bigger and faker, aiming it first at Rachel, then at Chloe. “Rachel, welcome home. Chloe, it’s so good to see you again. We’re glad you could make it.”

“Uhhh…” Chloe guiltily unhooks her fingers from the gaping tear in Rachel’s jeans, staring at Rose like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Useless. It took less than a second for Rose to get to her even with an ocean of alcohol in her bloodstream. “Me too, Mrs. A. Th-thanks for having me.”

“Won’t you girls come in?” Rose steps aside and holds open the door. 

Rachel tugs Chloe along behind her by the hole in her shirt, letting saccharine seep into the smile she flashes at Rose as they walk past. Rose is so placid and docile as she closes the door behind them that Rachel longs to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. And Chloe… What the actual fuck? Where did her cool, confident Chloe go, and who’s this polite, stuttering mess wearing her clothes? She should’ve known this was going to happen. And she did, sort of, deep down, but it’s still fucking disappointing. 

As they approach the bright lights of the dining room, Rachel draws Chloe close to her, presses her lips to an ear. “You’re supposed to be my armor, remember?” she whispers. “I _need_ you for this, Chlo. Where are you?”

Chloe’s arm slips around her waist then, rests a hand on her hip and squeezes. It’s something, anyway. 

It’s disorienting, being back in the Amber house. Nothing’s really changed since the last time Rachel was there, and that alone makes her skin crawl. Same expensive, meaningless shit on the walls. Same show-off books unread on the bookshelves. Same scent of wood burning in the fireplace, mixed with her father’s sherry.

Same James fucking Amber sitting in the same damn chair. He looks a little older now. Thinner. Paler. Bags under his eyes darker. A touch of silver in his hair. His jaw still sets the same. His eyes are still as piercing as ever.

He’s been out for nearly a month. Except for a couple of awkward, forced visits in the first months of his incarceration, Rachel has managed not to see him at all - busy with school, with extra-curriculars, with friends, with a hundred different excuses. Living in the dorms makes it easier. She’d just as soon never set foot in this house again. Never have to look him in the eye again, knowing the terrible things he did. Knowing he never really did his time and never will; not the time that he deserved. Less than a year in prison, after what he did to Sera. After what he did to Rachel, all her life, hiding her own birth mother from her. Lying to her. If she never saw him again, it would be too soon.

Chloe’s squeezing her hip again, stroking her thumb up and down her side soothingly. Rachel can barely feel it through the clattering of her nerves. 

James drains his glass of sherry, and then he rises to greet them. “Rachel,” he says, his voice measured and even.

“James.” 

His flinch at her tone is all but imperceptible to the untrained eye; she senses it rather than sees it. “Welcome home,” he continues. There’s an awkward silence for a moment when she pointedly doesn’t return his sentiment. “We’re… glad you were able to join us.” He shifts his eyes to Chloe, looking for help. “Both of you, of course.”

“We know,” Rachel acknowledges, looping an arm around Chloe’s shoulders. “Rose said.” She squeezes Chloe’s shoulder, digging in her nails just slightly.

“‘Sup, Mr. A. How was prison?” Chloe’s got a slight quiver of uncertainty in her voice, but she hides it well with a broad grin. Rachel could fucking kiss her.

James clears his throat, looking for a second like he’s swallowed a tack. Rose pipes up behind them before he has to formulate an answer, “Why don’t we all move into the dining room? We’ve got a lovely Thanksgiving dinner ready.”

Chloe tugs Rachel closer still. “Sounds great, Mrs. A. And I’m sure Mr. A can’t wait to eat a real, home cooked meal, right, Mr. A? Gotta be better than prison grub.”

“James has been getting plenty of home cooked meals,” Rose assures her as she herds the small crowd toward the dining room. “He’s been home for some time now.” Her eyes flicker toward Rachel as she draws back her chair. Rachel can feel a silent accusation hovering on her tongue, a “you would know if you ever visited,” and she wishes Rose would just fucking _say_ it.

The dining room table - solid wood this time, and beautifully polished under the ornate tablecloth - is all laid out with a lavish spread. The table is set for four, but the turkey in the center could handily feed a family of ten. Candles flicker on either end of it, probably with the intention of giving the room a warm, intimate atmosphere but really making it feel like a house in an old horror movie. The table overflows with side dishes: mashed potatoes, candied yams, corn, peas, biscuits, cranberry sauce, and on and on to the point that the side-table and counters are loaded with dishes as well.

Chloe lets out a low whistle. “Woah, shit, we expecting twenty more people?”

“Only a couple of teenage appetites.”

“You really outdid yourself, Rose,” Rachel remarks. “All that’s missing is a centerpiece, huh, Chlo?” She gives Chloe a firm pinch.

Chloe swallows a yelp, her cheeks reddening noticeably. “Y-yeah. A centerpiece.” She tosses Rachel a glare as Rachel saunters toward an empty seat. Rachel gives her a look of exaggerated innocence in return.

Dropping heavily into her seat beside Rachel, Chloe snatches a biscuit with her nicotine-stained fingers and shoves it into her mouth without waiting for the go-ahead from Rose. “‘S cold,” she complains around a wad of half-chewed food. Rachel has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud. 

“Yes, well. Perhaps we could say grace before we all dig in?”

“I think Chloe wanted to do it this year.” Rachel presses Chloe’s thigh beneath the table.

Chloe swallows the last of her biscuit with an audible gulp. “Uhhhhh…”

“C’mon, Chlo, I thought you had the perfect one earlier.” Rachel locks eyes with her and watches her squirm. “Didn’t you?”

“I-I mean, uh…”

“Why don’t you do the honors, Rachel?” Rose cuts in.

“Yeah, Rach, why don’t _you_ do the honors?” Chloe’s eyes are glittering with amusement as she snaps up another biscuit and breaks it in half, scattering crumbs onto the floor. 

“Just because I’m the only one of us with any grace doesn’t mean I should have to say it,” Rachel grumbles, reaching for her water glass. “I guess James is the only one who gets booze this year? I thought this was a celebration. Shouldn’t we be breaking out the champagne or some shit?”

“Rachel, sweetie, you girls are only eighteen. It… doesn’t seem right to serve you alcohol.” Rose manages not to make eye contact with Rachel once as she unfolds her napkin and settles it on her lap.

“Like Jimbo there didn’t give me sips of his sherry when I was still in single digits? Whatever.”

“I know you’re upset, Rachel,” James cuts in, the word “upset” spat like something distasteful. “But I’m still your father.”

“And what would I have to be _upset_ about, _Father_?” Silence lays over the table then, heavy and thick. Rachel scrapes back her chair and makes for the refrigerator. “Well, isn’t _anyone_ going to say grace?”

“What are you doing, dear?”

Rachel holds up a half-empty bottle of red wine triumphantly and waves it in the air. Rose’s mouth opens in protest, but she fails to get any words out. “A glass of wine isn’t going to kill me, Rose. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.” She fetches a wine glass out of a cabinet. “Chlo?”

“Uh… Sure.” Chloe’s looking uneasy again, picking apart what’s left of her cold biscuit with nervous fingers. 

Rachel grabs a second glass and places one in front of Chloe and the other in front of her own setting. She pours heavily into each, nearly emptying the bottle. She stares at Rose the entire time, daring her to say something. _Anything_. Rose just stares back at her, eyes empty. Rachel resumes her seat, tipping up the wine bottle and emptying the dregs into her mouth. She sets the bottle down hard on the table, rattling the silverware. Rose clears her throat softly and begins to say grace.

Rachel drinks steadily throughout. Even when Chloe puts a hand on her thigh and gives her a small warning squeeze, she continues to drain her glass.

It’s such bullshit.

They’re forty minutes late. The food is stone cold. They stink to hell and back and look like human garbage. They’re _obviously_ stoned and openly drinking.

Her parents have to be _furious_. They _have_ to be. How can Rose just sit there and say grace like everything is fine and normal? How can James just… _sit_ there? What the fuck does she have to do to make them act like actual _human parents_??

Rachel’s hands are shaking. When Chloe tries to gently take her hand to soothe her, Rachel whips it away. “Don’t _touch_ me,” she hisses under her breath. It sounds more cruel than she means it. She can tell by the way Chloe immediately retreats into herself like a scolded child that it cut her to the core. But Rachel knows that if anyone touches her right now, she’ll explode. And Chloe’s the only one in the room right now she _doesn’t_ want to hurt.

James clears his throat. “So, Rachel… How is school?”

Rachel would laugh if she weren’t seconds away from screaming. How is _school_? How was _prison_?

“Rachel had straight As on her last report card,” Rose announces when the silence has stretched on too long to bear. 

“Had to suck a lot of cock to get them, too,” Rachel declares dispassionately, stealing Chloe’s wine glass. It’s a lie - Rachel has so far managed to keep her grades impeccable without resorting to such tactics - but it’s what finally hits her target.

James’s glass of sherry tips over unheeded, spilling its contents all over their best tablecloth as he rockets to his feet. “ _What_ did you just say!?!” he roars.

Rose, her face pale, clutches for his arm and is shaken off. “James, dear, I-I’m sure--”

He holds up a stern hand, silencing her. “Rachel. Dawn. Amber.” His voice is strained through clenched teeth. His face is bright red, his eyes bulging in their sockets; he looks seconds away from bursting like an overripe tomato. “What. Did you. Just. _Say_.”

“Rach--” Chloe’s hand lights gently on Rachel’s knee. It’s a warning, but Rachel barely feels it.

Rachel sets down her stolen wine glass and leans across the table, staring hard into her father’s eyes. “Evan. James. Amber. You _heard_ what I _said_.”

He stares back into her eyes unblinkingly. His nostrils are flaring, his mouth twitching. She hasn’t seen him lose his shit like this in years.

Rachel grins and snatches her glass back up. She takes a long swallow. Her eyes are so dry they burn, but she won’t blink until he does. He looks like he’s barely restraining himself from knocking the glass right out of her hands. “Well, that’s good to know,” she says as she replaces the glass on the table, keeping her fingers resting lightly on the fine glass stem. “It’s the cock-sucking that gets under your skin. Duly noted.”

“ _Room_. You-- _Go to your room_ ,” he splutters, pointing emphatically toward the stairs.

Rachel raises her eyebrows. “Go to my room?” she repeats incredulously. “I don’t even _live_ here anymore. Try again, James.”

Rose speaks up calmly without raising her eyes from the table. “Rachel, dear, we think it would be best if--”

“If what, Rose? If I just fucked off and pretended to be your perfect little girl so you two can go back to feeling like perfect parents with perfect jobs and a perfect family, living perfect lives in our perfect house in our perfect neighborhood? If I pretended that my _father_ didn’t just get out of _prison_ for being a corrupt _asshole_ and trying to _murder_ my birth mother? If I pretended you didn’t both _lie_ to me for my entire life??”

“I lied to _protect_ you!” James roars, thumping his fists down on the table hard enough to rattle the dishes.

“You lied to protect _yourself_!!” Rachel thunders back.

The wine glass shatters before she realizes what’s even happening. One second it’s in her hand, the next it’s in a hundred shards scattered across the table. Red soaking into Rose’s best tablecloth like blood. Chloe’s hand gentle but firm on her elbow, pulling her back from the table.

Her father yelling. Rose speaking gently, calmly. Touching his arm, his shoulder. Restraining him the only way she can.

“We’ve gotta go.” Chloe’s voice in her ear, placating, almost pleading. “C’mon, Rach. We’ve gotta go.”

Rachel, furious to the point of numbness, to the point of not even feeling anger anymore, allows herself to be guided to the door. When the cold air revives her enough to bring her back into her body, Rachel is surprised to find that her hands are shaking. “That happened,” she says, her voice still dull with shock. “That actually happened.”

“It sure fucking did. C’mon, let’s leg it.”

Rachel laughs and stops in her tracks. Chloe tugs at her hand, impatient. “I told him off. I actually told him what I think of him. I called him an asshole and an attempted murderer.” She stumbles after Chloe. “He _yelled_ at me.”

“He did,” Chloe confirms. “Congratulations. Now c’mon, we gotta hustle.”

“Why? You think he’ll call the cops on us? Not a chance. It was only a wine glass, Chloe. He didn’t even call the cops when I smashed the old table. He just had the insurance cover the expenses and cut my allowance for a month. He didn’t even yell at me.” Rachel stops again, and Chloe reluctantly stops with her. Chloe looks pale and frantic. Thoughts knit together slowly in her mind.

Shit. Of course. Chloe’s not thinking about James. She’s thinking about _David_. She’s thinking about how _he_ would react if Chloe pulled a stunt like this. No wonder she’s freaking out.

Rachel squeezes her sweating hand. “Hey. Let’s crash at my dorm. We can celebrate with video games and junk food.”

“Celebrate?” Chloe coughs out a dull laugh. “ _Celebrate_. Okay, sure.”

“What?” Rachel asks as she starts walking again, heading for Blackwell. “You don’t think that this was a resounding success?”

“Well,” Chloe concedes, “I didn’t have to say grace, at least.”

“And hey, you survived the night with your dignity mostly intact! I didn’t even have to strip you and tie you to the dining room table to piss off my-- to piss off James and Rose.” Did she even manage to penetrate Rose’s armor? Surely she must have put a chink in it. She’ll take a small victory over no victory at all.

Chloe flushes red under the streetlights. “Yeah…” Chloe looks good like that. Blushing suits her. Shame it doesn’t happen more often.

Rachel sways her body easily into Chloe’s, wrapping an arm around her slender waist to keep her steady when she stumbles. “Kind of too bad it didn’t come to that, though.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe for Christmas, huh?”

Rachel snorts out a bitter laugh. “Fuckin’... _Shoot_ me if I agree to Christmas dinner with them.”

Chloe rocks Rachel’s body in her arms, swaying from foot to foot. It makes Rachel slightly queasy but it’s mostly nice so she doesn’t complain. Chloe’s hands smooth down her back in a soothing rhythm. “I dunno… Rose bakes pretty tasty cookies. Might be a good opportunity to really milk their parental guilt and get some sick presents.”

“I don’t want anything from them.”

“Well, you can give them all to me, then. I’m not getting jack shit from Joyce and the step-dick, I can tell you that much.”

“Mmmm,” Rachel hums drowsily against Chloe’s chest, her limbs growing heavy in Chloe’s arms. “Poor deprived baby.”

“You’re not wrong,” Chloe says. She surprises Rachel out of her sleepy comfort with a playful slap to her backside. “Speaking of which… You _bitch_ , you couldn’t wait until I had some turkey before you started breaking shit? That smelled _good_.”

Rachel laughs, and Chloe laughs with her. But when Chloe’s laughter peters out, Rachel’s keeps on going, adopting a hysterical edge.

“Rach… Rach, are you okay?”

The breaths that Rachel sucks in between laughs turn into sobs. Chloe’s shirt grows wet beneath her face.

“I… I’m not actually mad at you; you know that, right? Rach?”

Rachel can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying anymore. They’re the same thing. Nobody is ever really mad at Rachel. Even James and Rose aren’t really mad at her. She could turn around and walk back in right now and not get anything more than a couple of stern sentences and a loaded plate of Thanksgiving dinner. 

Rachel cries until she’s blissfully empty, then wipes her face on Chloe’s shirt and pulls back, offering a very concerned-looking Chloe a watery smile. “Hey. Let’s just go back to Blackwell, huh? One set of asshole parents is more than enough for one holiday. I’ve got some junk food stashed in my closet. I’ll make it up to you.”

Chloe purses her lips, looking like she wants to ask Rachel about a hundred questions that Rachel has absolutely no interest in hearing. Rachel tugs her hand and brightens her smile. “C’mon,” Rachel lures. “I’ve got gummy worms.”

That draws an amused snort out of Chloe. She allows Rachel to drag her feet into motion. “Oh. Well. If you’ve got gummy worms, who needs turkey?” She leans over and presses a kiss into Rachel’s temple.

“I’ll order us a pizza,” Rachel promises, letting her. “Whatever toppings you want. I won’t let my sweetheart go hungry tonight.”

Chloe stumbles, but she’s always been a clumsy, graceless drunk once she’s had this much. “Your sweetheart, huh?”

Rachel squeezes her hand and pulls her close instead of answering. She doesn’t feel like explaining anything. She feels like being held, and Chloe’s only too happy to oblige her. “We really showed them, didn't we?”

“We sure did, angel,” Chloe replies, arm warm around Rachel’s shoulders.

It’s a long, unsteady walk back to Blackwell. Rachel tries to focus on the solid warmth of Chloe’s body jostling into hers as they walk, the comforting drape of her arm over her shoulders like a cape, the way she feels more like home than the Amber house has felt in years. She tries to think about anything other than the hollow feeling in her chest.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this fic about two years ago, and I'm relieved to finally be booting it out of the airlock. If you enjoyed, please drop me a comment and smash that kudos button! It's always greatly appreciated.


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